13. Clear your work area and your escape path of brush, vines, and other hazards that can trip you or catch your saw.
14. Escape from the bullseye when the tree tips. 90% of accidents happen within 12 feet of the stump. Go more than 15 feet, and stay out of the bullseye until things stop falling.
15. Keep spectators away more than twice the height of the tree in the direction it will fall.
16. Don't cut alone.
17. Keep your body and the swamper's out of the line of the bar in case of a kickback.
18. Set the brake when taking over two steps or when moving through tripping hazards. Keep your trigger finger off of the throttle when you are moving.
19. DO NOT operate a chainsaw from a ladder! Operating with your feet off the ground requires special training.
20. Do not cut above your shoulders.
21. Springpoles must be shaved on the inside of the apex between the ascending and descending sides. If the apex is higher than you shoulders, stand under the springpole and cut it low on the descending side. It will release upward, away from you.Leaning and heavily loaded poles that are too small to bore cut for a hinge should be shaved on the compressed side until they fold.
22. Do not cut a tree that is holding up a lodged tree. Do not work under a lodged tree. Think about a mouse trying to steal the cheese out of a trap.
23. Instruct your swampers and helpers to NEVER approach you from behind or the sides to within the reach of your saw when you are cutting. If you pull out of a cut with the chain running, or have a severe kickback, the swamper can be killed if he is coming up behind you!
24!! Quit When You Are Tired!
5 comments:
I'm from East Texas, and I've lived in Kansas City for 25 years, but I've fallen in love with Kansas and its little towns. My wife grew up in Solomon, Little River, Pawnee Rock, and Larned, and her parents lived in Larned until recently. Her youngest sister lived in Colby for a couple of decades after she married, and her brother's wife is from Oakley. She has aunts and uncles in Sublette, Hutchinson, Council Grove, and other towns. There's a great little motorcycle museum in Marquette. I've driven and ridden a motorcycle through every part of the state.
The threshing scene at the top of the blog is a scene from Kansas. H Gilbert family, Macon Kansas. Click to this blog page: https://truebluesam.blogspot.com/2008/01/weekend-steam_26.html I remember the two young girls with their mother in front of the soddie. Rose and Fannie Gilbert. Rose was a school superintendent at Sharon Springs, Kansas, and later moved to rural Washington, Iowa. The father was run down by a runaway team while he was at his mailbox in 1903, four miles west of Washington, Iowa. He died several days later in the house where I lived from 1953 to 1964.
I've never been to that specific part of western Kansas. One of these days, I'll make it out to Little Jerusalem Badlands and visit some of those town out there.
It's pretty amazing what they could do with sod when building those houses. Necessity is the mother of invention!
I just picked up my copy of Lee Child's "Nothing to Lose" (Jack Reacher novel) and noticed that it takes place in two fictional towns near Sharon Springs, KS. Sharon Springs is mentioned near the end of the last chapter.
That is really neat. Small World! I must read that book.
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